The police said the stores were selling books that supported terrorism and that two members of the family who owned the business had been arrested. A lawyer said their detention was “political” rather than legal.

A representative of Ireland’s Embassy in Tel Aviv was among a diplomatic presence from at least nine countries attending the booksellers’ court hearing on Monday. A post on the Embassy’s X page called the raid and arrests “an attack on freedom of expression and fundamental democratic values”.

An Israeli police raid on a well-known chain of Palestinian bookshops in occupied East Jerusalem and the detention of their owners has shocked many people in the city's cultural, journalistic and diplomatic communities,